This was wednesday...

...from 7:00 am till 5:30 pm. 560 damajuanas.

Uncle Oscar & sodium metabisulblahblah, cousin Caro
carrying damajuanas, cousin Alberto corking, and aunt
Nilda filling them up.




Aunt Nilda & her labels.


LA ÍRIDE, Malbec Roble (proud we are, yes)

And, tomorrow... harvest & new wine making!

Bottle washing and family reunion

An intense weekend. First, on saturday, my dad and i got up at 7:00, filled a thermos with hot water for mate, bought some hot "tortitas" and drove to the winery. We joined my uncle Oscar and cousin Osvaldo there, who were already washing bottles. The bottles in question are special ones; their equivalent in Norway would be the 3 liter wine boxes, except that these bottles have capacity for 5 liters instead. They look just like this one on the left, little plastic basket and all. In my translation i've called them "bottles", but they look more like jugs, don't they? Anyways, the spanish word for them is "damajuanas", which would literally translate as "ladyjanes". This isn't an english word at all, but it's more fun to say i spent saturday washing lady Janes (lady Jane's what?) than to say i spent it washing bottles.

Thing is, each time you sell a lady Jane filled with wine, you get back an empty one from the customer. That way, wineries don't need to be buying new lady Janes all the time. You simply remove the old labels, wash it inside and out, fill it with wine, stick a new label, and voilá! Lady Jane is again ready to pour.

Sounds simple, but it has its method. First you fill many vats with warm water and soak the lady Janes in them, bottoms up, so that the labels soften up and become easier to remove. You move from one vat to the next, with a scouring pad for the recalcitrant bit of paper and a penknife to get rid of the plastic capsules. You also need a special tool to remove the occasional piece of cork from lady Jane's insides.

After that, each lady Jane gets its insides washed by a special machine (operated by hand) that shoots high pressure jets of a solution of water and caustic soda. Then they go through another vat in which they are rinsed inside and out and their baskets are checked and replaced, if necessary. Finally, they go through the special machine once more, except this time they get only water, in order to make sure that all the caustic soda is completely removed. Finally you pile them up, and they are (almost) ready to be filled.

On saturday we managed to prepare thus 600 lady Janes, which we'll fill this wednesday. We'll use the special washing machine once more, this time with a solution of water and sodium metabisulphite (a sanitizer). By means of a pump, this solution will also be made to run through the pipes that will be used to transfer the wine from the tanks to the dossifier, also operated by hand. We'll cork them with another machine, put plastic capsules on top, seal them with heat, hand glue the labels, and stack them. It'll be another long day, but it's fun: everybody jokes and chats, we pause around noon, drink mate, eat some sandwiches...

Sunday was lighter, but very "familiar", too. Got together for lunch with a few uncles and cousins... Here's some pics:

Vendimia

Vendimia is the spanish word for grape harvest. It signifies the action, but it is also applied to the time of year in which grapes are picked. In Mendoza, that time is now, and for the few weeks that vendimia lasts, it dominates everything. Each district has its own vendimia celebration through january and february, and then finally in early march there are parades with floats in the capital city. There's a traditional pageant in which a "vendimia queen" is chosen, a gay pageant that mimics it, fireworks, an artsy show in an amphitheater, wine parties everywhere...

Paralell to all this, local news talk about disagreements between grape growers and wine makers about what the fair price of grapes should be. The weather can play foul, too: sometimes you're about to begin harvesting, and your grapes are hit by hail, which may knock off as much as 90% of your production...

Right after the 2001 crisis my dad and his brothers pooled together the savings left from the disappearance act managed by the Argentinean banking system at that time and started a tiny winery. Years before they'd bought a couple of hectares of near desert land in Maipú; now they put it to use by building a shed to house the fermentation tanks and other equipment made by one of my uncles at the metalurgical workshop he works at. On the rest of the land they planted some vines (Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and even a little Chardonnay) that are cared for, on a rotational basis, by each of the associates. A cousin made a website to publicize the business and voilá... they had a vacuum cleaner that's been sucking in money since then. Since the production capacity of the place is so small, their strategy has been to make real good wines, but still, our enologist says that time is needed, that creating a market for a wine is a slow process... This year it seems they might in fact break even...

Anyway, the nice thing about this little winery is that the whole family gets together during vendimia. We pick our own grapes and, assessed by an enologist, we even make our own wines. Of course, i say "we", yet living abroad, this will be the first year i'm part of all this. I'm really excited about it, and i'll keep you updated.

At last!

Been in Argentina for a bit over a month now, and it's taken me this long to get a connection at home, even though i ordered it the day after i arrived. Petulant as i may sound, things do move at a totally different pace in here. I'd forgotten about that, and for that reason among others, i've been feeling a bit out of place. This feeling, rather than internetlessness, has been the real cause of my blogging silence... That and a summer flu, a trip to the countryside... and a sense of being speechless in the face of tragedy.

Anyway, i'll start light, with some pictures from my trip to Malargüe, in southern Mendoza. First, though, a little tableau i witnessed today in the city center:

A toy store on a corner, a man dressed as Barney the dinosaur in front of it. He's chatting with a pretty, young woman who holds a baby in her arms. Barney's mouth is open, and through a slit at the back of it the man inside looks out into the world. What he doesn't see is the 7-or-8 year old boy who comes running from behind him, grabs the tail of his screen hero, and begins to pull it around heedless of his mother's calls. Barney is in shock. He tries to look back, but his thick plushy body has no neck to speak of. Finally the man thinks of pulling Barney's head off of his own, glares at the boy and says: "Qué te pasa, culeau?" (literally: "What is it, you ass-fucked one?"). Maybe it was too hot inside that suit.

So, here's the pics:

These formations are near the Atuel canyon, in San Rafael. We decided not to carve any presidents' faces here, for obvious reasons.


Agua del Toro Dam, with mom & dad.


Valle Hermoso, Malargüe.


Laguna de Llancanelo.


Flamingos at Llancanelo.

Sigh! I did miss all of this, after all...

Fra Bergen...

First entry of the new year...

Speaking of which, have you ever wondered why the formula is "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" but not "Happy Christmas and Merry New Year"? Not that finding an answer to this would be very relevant, but still, one wonders... Perhaps what people are really saying when they exchange this words is simply "Hey, I'm thinking of you at this time" (for whatever reason that may be).

Anyway, am in Bergen right now. These last 20 or so days have definitely included some variety. On my way to Valencia from Tromsø, stopped in London and met with Gerardo, a friend from my own years as a UWC student. Since i practically wheezed through the city, we didn't have time for more than one afternoon together, but we did have a couple of beers and a nice chat. Weird thing, the way it goes with old UWC friends when they meet again. We hadn't talked in quite a while and we have both obviously changed very much since our highschool days, yet it was easy to reconnect. Cheesy as it may sound, i still believe that what we shared in those two years was so fundamental that it will always form a kind of link with my mates from that time, no matter how long the intervening months or years stretch (roll your eyes all you want).

The Gerardo i remembered was very carefree and somewhat cynical... The one i met now said he was worried about the time he had "wasted", but a little less pessimistic, less guarded with his emotions (and he's living in England! go figure...). Physically, he hasn't changed much, and he still has the same quirky sense of humour i remember. It is good to know he's out there, you know? Do you ever get that feeling about distant friends? That you don't need to talk to them all the time -- not even so often, but that it makes you happy just to know that they are alive.

And then, Valencia. Spent almost two weeks with my brother Leandro and his wife, Celia. I love those two. They're really in love with each other.